


Second Chances

by lowflyingfruit



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 00:49:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13043061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lowflyingfruit/pseuds/lowflyingfruit
Summary: The thing about Jason's decision to make up with his family is that now he's trying to make up with his family. He's never done anything like this before. He's got the feeling that his family's actually been pretty crap in some ways. He's got the feeling that he's sabotaging his own efforts.Turns out, that much anger - his own, and his family's - doesn't go away just like that.





	Second Chances

**Author's Note:**

> Been working on this one for a while and finally got it out of my system. 
> 
> The only real warnings here are for a lot of swearing (courtesy of angry Jason) and Jason's mental health issues, but just be aware of unreliable narrators and biased characters.

The second time he worked with Nightwing as Red Hood, naturally, they needed to question Two-Face - currently resident in Arkham Asylum. Not that Jason expected that to last for the next half hour or so. Unless the revolving door was jammed with other escapees.

“You don’t have to go in if you don’t want to,” Nightwing said, as they got off their bikes. Behind his mask, Jason would bet that his eyes were huge and as puppy-dog imploring as they ever got. Which was quite a bit. Anyone who thought Nightwing was most dangerous with his escrima sticks hadn’t talked to the manipulative SOB for any length of time, much less barefaced.

It didn’t work on Jason, though, not even when Dick had that mask off. “You think I can’t handle it or something?” he asked, voice sharp.

“I think it’s Arkham Asylum,” Dick said. “I can handle Two-Face if I have to. You don’t _need_ to go in, not if you don’t want to.”

“That would’ve been nice to hear before you shoved me in a cell and threw away the key,” Jason said, and pushed past him towards their entrance point.

No reaction from Dick, at least not one that he could hear. Jason didn’t know whether he liked that or not. Hurting Dick usually did feel like kicking a puppy. Other times Jason just wanted to smash his teeth in and watch him try to fake a smile through _that_. Less often now than he used to, but still sometimes.

Either way, he neither needed nor wanted Dick’s pity. He could stand Arkham Asylum, especially if nobody tried to lock him up this time. He was first over the wall, Nightwing on his heels, and he didn’t look back before he slipped through a window.

It was the same as ever inside. Bare walls, dark corners, the pervasive feel of dampness and apathy in every pseudo-Victorian nook and cranny. Jason hadn’t missed it. Not one bit. It echoed in here. Screams carried a long way. A long, horrible way. Even now he thought he could hear the Joker’s laughter bouncing off the bricks.

No, the dawning realisation came, he _could_ hear Joker’s laughter bouncing off the bricks.

Fuck. He was here. The Joker was _here_. Still. Or again, maybe. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he could really hear it.

“Hood?” A light touch on his shoulder became a firmer grip, ushering him into a storage room. Jason swatted it away, and this time he heard Dick hiss with pain, but he followed. No cameras in the storage room. “You all right?” Dick asked.

“No, I am not fucking _all right_ ,” Jason snapped. His knees weren’t shaking. They _weren’t_. “That _thing_ is laughing again. Only heard it on and off every day I was here.” Every night too. Three in the morning, perfect time for a bout of mad laughter. Good time for flashbacks, too. He would know.

Nightwing moved around, so that he was in front of Jason rather than beside. “The Joker was - he was _here_? The whole time you were?” He never truly looked pale, not with his skin, but there were lines around his mouth and a furrow to his brow that Jason couldn’t remember ever seeing before. He looked…guilty.

So Jason said, “Fuck you. _Now_ you care?”

“J- Hood!”

Now he sounded _wounded_ , and now Jason was angry. “ _Fuck you_ ,” he repeated. “Asshole. Where else would he be, if he wasn’t out killing people? Of course he was here. A few doors down from me. I got a real good listen. Thanks for giving me the opportunity, _bro_.”

“You think I _wanted_ \- what do you take me for?”

“A self-righteous shit-for-brains,” Jason said. Oh, he was getting somewhere now. His heart was pounding, and he was so angry he could almost forget that he was in an Arkham storage room with the Joker’s laughter right outside. As long as he focused on Dickhead, and the way his relative pallor was starting to become a heated flush - “Who cares more about his precious principles than the reality staring him in the face.”

“If I had known -“

“Get off it.” It was so absurd, he even managed to laugh. It didn’t sound nice, not even to his own ears, but then again, he wasn’t talking about nice things. “Be honest with yourself for once in your damn life. If you had known the Joker was here, you would have done exactly the same thing. You’d just feel worse about it. About as bad as you feel now.”

For one sweet second, he thought Dick would hit him. Daddy’s favourite little vigilante, losing his temper and punching an ally in the face. It was too good. Better than anything else Jason had seen in Arkham for sure. He knew Dick had lost his temper like that before. The occasions he’d lost his cool were Teen Titans _legend_. Bruce used to lecture _him_ about his outbursts, but only one Robin had got into a full-on fistfight with Roy Harper, and only one Robin had made Donna Troy cry.

Then Dick’s fists unclenched, and all the tension drained from his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he said.

_What?_ Now it was Jason’s fists that were clenching. It was too hot in here already, tiny storage room not built for two grown men. He couldn’t breathe - and he couldn’t leave, either, not with that laughter outside. 

“I’m sorry,” Dick repeated. The bastard had the nerve, the _nerve_ , to look contrite. And guilty again. So he fucking should, but for some reason it only made Jason’s guts feel like they were boiling. “There’s probably nothing I can say, or do, but I _am_ sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you more, and I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt, and I couldn’t look after you myself. Arkham was all I could think of.”

“I was going _mad_ in here! You think that’ll make it _better_?” he snarled. “Good intentions, oh, you think I should forgive you because you had _good intentions_?”

They were so close together that Jason could feel Dick take a deep breath. “No,” he said. “It was my mistake and you paid for it. But for whatever it’s worth, that’s what I was thinking.”

Jason nodded. Then he punched Dick in his stupid smug face, hard as he could. Which, given he couldn’t get much space to swing, wasn’t very hard. Dick didn’t put an arm up to defend, didn’t move aside to dodge, just let Jason hit him in the mouth. It split his lower lip. The fucking martyr.

Blood running down his chin, Dick said, “I’ll deal with Two-Face,” and left. He didn’t even elbow Jason in the ribs or tread on his toes as he did.

All in all, it was not as cathartic as Jason had hoped.

 

—

 

Of course, nobody could lay a finger on the golden boy without consequences. That was just how it _worked._ Breathe wrong in his direction, and half a dozen people came running to a) make sure he was all right and b) hurt whoever had done the wrong breathing in question. 

These days Dickhead even had the little murder brat defending him. How Jason loved double standards. The kid killed people, and Dick made him Robin, because he needed _structure_ and _direction_ and _someone to believe in him_. Jason killed people, Dick threw him in Arkham. Wasn’t like the kid didn’t know what he was doing, either. Age of accountability his ass.

The only question was who would be coming after Jason. The aforementioned murder brat? The Replacement? A Batgirl on an unusual warpath? Oracle? The big man himself?

Whatever. Jason wasn’t in the mood to deal with any of them tonight. The confrontation with Dick in Arkham hadn’t helped. It had just left him feeling sour and empty. And surveillance left him a lot of time to dwell on things.

“Hood,” a solemn voice said from behind him.

“Replacement,” Jason replied, without turning around.

Well, it could be worse. The Replacement could be reasonable. Sometimes.

“What’s going on here?” he asked, crouching down by Jason. “Drug deal?”

“Distribution,” Jason replied. “I know they’re bagging it here. Just want to see who’s picking it up first. Then I’m putting a stop to it.”

“You need a second pair of eyes?” the Replacement asked tentatively.

Jason thought about it. He knew perfectly well the Replacement wasn’t here only to lend him a hand. Or even mostly to lend him a hand. He still couldn’t bring himself to care much. “Whatever,” he said.

The Replacement took his own perch, angled so he could see through a window and along a back alley, where Jason had eyes on the door. For an hour they continued surveillance, Red Robin making notes of everyone who went in and out of the building. For an hour, Jason resisted the temptation to just get it over with, if the Replacement wouldn’t make the first move.

Eventually, he snapped. “Out with it,” he said. “Come on, I know you’re not just here to make nice.”

He turned, and saw the Replacement’s denials die before they could get past his lying teeth. Instead, he pressed his lips together in an expression he’d _definitely_ learned from Bruce. “Fine,” he said. “What happened with you and Nightwing the other day?”

“Very nice,” Jason said. “Leaving me plenty of space to incriminate myself there. I decline to answer. Not that you’d believe the best of me anyway.”

“Yeah, we’re all out to get you.” He could almost hear the Replacement rolling his eyes. “Nightwing came back with a busted lip and researched Arkham for three hours. I just wanted to know what got him so worked up.”

That meant it was Jason’s turn to roll his eyes. “You mean you wanted to know who punched him in his pretty face.”

“That too.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I did it. But you knew that already. Got anything to say about it? Or you going to try and avenge his honour?”

“Hardly,” Red Robin said, still focused on his stakeout. He hadn’t looked away for a second. Dutiful and focused to a fault. A regular mini-Bruce. “I just wanted to know why.”

“We were talking about that time he put me in Arkham,” Jason said. “Turns out that locking someone in an asylum where they can hear their murderer laughing at all hours isn’t so great for their mental health. Who knew!”

Silence - or as close as a city the size of Gotham ever got to silence, which meant that Red Robin said nothing, while around them cars passed, a plane flew overhead, and a bass beat from a nearby club pounded insistently. “I can see how that wouldn’t work out,” Replacement said at last.

Okay, he knew he wasn’t imagining the disapproval in Replacement’s voice. “Got a problem with that?”

“I’m not one to criticise on that account,” Replacement said. “I’ve wanted to punch him before too.”

Right, right, the brat. Replacement’s own replacement. “I recommend it,” Jason said. “Feels good.” For about a millisecond.

“No need. We worked it out. Eventually.”

“Make him suffer, did you?”

“No, we talked about it,” the Replacement said absently, eyes on a delivery man carrying a stack of pizza boxes. “I told him my side, he told me his, and in the end he apologised. It wasn’t what I’d call a fun conversation, but we’re both grown-ups, we can handle it.”

Now he saw. He should never have let his guard down. After all, he was dealing with another of Bruce’s little henchmen. They lived and breathed manipulation. “So I’m not a grown-up, that’s what you’re saying.”

The Replacement looked up then, glancing sideways at Jason, gauging his reaction. “I’m saying some of us don’t try and fix our interpersonal problems with violence.”

He sneered behind his helmet. “Doesn’t sound like Nightwing, then. I’ve seen him and B fight.”

Replacement said, “I’ve seen Nightwing and Batman make up. They talked it out. Not punched. People change.”

Jason nodded. Maybe he should punch Replacement, too. “Then by analogy I should talk it out with D- Nightwing. Hell with that. He put me in Arkham and all he did was _apologise_. What’s that supposed to fix?”

“Nobody’s claiming it _fixes_ anything. At least not in the sense it magically undoes the past. Seriously though, you think Nightwing _knew_ the Joker was down the hall from you? You think he _wanted_ to put you in Arkham? You think you didn’t do anything to _deserve_ being put in Arkham? Or that you didn’t do anything that Nightwing forgave _you_ for? Or that Batman forgave you for? Or that _I_ forgave you for?”

“Look here, you sanctimonious little prick -“

“You cut my throat.”

Well. He had. That was true. He’d been so angry, everything seen through a haze of Lazarus Pit green and red, red, red. “You know I wasn’t in my right mind,” he said.

Replacement’s blank white lenses bored into him. “Which is why I don’t hold a grudge over it.”

“Yes, you sound very forgiving -“

“What would you tell a civilian in my position?” the Replacement interrupted. “If you knew a civilian whose estranged brother attacked and almost killed them in a drug-induced rage, what would you say about it if you were asked?”

Jason’s own throat went suddenly, horribly dry. 

Red Robin turned away. “Think about that,” he said. “I recognise the man sitting next to the second window on the left. He works - worked - for Two-Face. B’s files say he’s got ambitions to do a bit more than that. I’ll send you a copy. Like I said, I’m not holding a grudge.” And with that, he vanished back over the rooftop he came from, leaving Jason alone.

 

—

 

What _would_ he say? He had the feeling that he knew the answer. Punch the attacker in the face next time. Hold a grudge. Don’t trust them again.

He also had the feeling that Red Robin knew perfectly well what Jason would say, and that only made him angrier. What the hell was he trying to say, then? That he was better than Jason? Because he wasn’t. It wasn’t even a good analogy. Red Robin sure as fuck wasn’t a civilian. He could handle shit like what Jason had done to him. Hell, he was supposed to be a _hero_ (the very thought invited sarcasm). A detective, at least. Fat lot of detective work he’d done, when it came to Jason.

_Broken. Failure._

Replacement just believed it.

He was stewing on it again (and why hadn’t he _stopped_ , really? Why did he even _care_?) on another patrol when he actually _heard_ someone approach. That ruled out so many people who could be after a chat. “Wow,” Batgirl said, “You are _really_ good at brooding. Man, someone should give you a black cape, and then you can hold brood-offs with B. That’d be a close-run thing.”

“We’re nothing alike,” Jason snarled.

Batgirl laughed nervously. “Aha, sure, that’s a good way to convince me. Yep. Nothing alike. Not one point of similarity to be found between you.” Another nervous giggle.

He felt a bit bad about putting her on edge, then. Batgirl hadn’t done anything to him, not ever. The worst thing about her was the fact she was the Replacement’s bestie…aaaaaand the Replacement totally would send a proxy to butter him up, or teach him some sort of moral lesson, or whatever. “You here to give me another talking-to on forgiveness?” he asked.

Unlike a lot of the so-called family, Batgirl wasn’t what anyone could call guarded or opaque. Her confusion showed not only on what face was visible, but in the hefty shrug she gave him as well. “No, I came to see you because B’s being an asshole and trying to keep me off the thing with Two-Face, and I figured that if you knew something about it, you’d tell me.”

The Two-Face thing… right. Jason had been avoiding that case, or more precisely, the people working on it. So they hadn’t worked it out yet. Probably getting their spandex in a twist over maybe getting the scumbag killed. Jason wasn’t going to shed any tears over a mobster getting whacked for their ambitions. That wasn’t the point, though. The point was, Batman was an asshole and Batgirl wanted something from him.

If it pissed Batman off, Jason was _fine_ with that.

“One of Two-Face’s men is taking his boss’s Arkham stay as an opportunity to start up his own business,” he said. “He’s got two bases of operation now - a pair of restaurants his family owns. He hasn’t directly moved into Two-Face’s territory yet, but he’s working alongside it. If you want in on this case, I’d suggest you check out the deals going down on Regent Avenue.”

Batgirl _hmm_ ed. “Awesome,” she said, after another moment’s thought. “I can definitely use that. Thanks, Hood.”

She turned to go, but he wasn’t done yet. “Hang on a second,” he said. “Now you tell _me_ stuff. What’s your deal with Batman?”

Batgirl turned back to him with a whirl of blonde hair. This time, her smile was slightly grim. Dogged, like she was hanging onto her good cheer by her teeth. “No mystery,” she said. “He’s an asshole. You haven’t heard the story?”

“I was a bit Lazarus-deranged at the time. Being manipulated by Talia al Ghul took up the rest of my days around then.”

“Fair enough. I’d miss the gossip that way too. You want the long version or the short one?”

The edge hadn’t retreated from the normally-cheerful Batgirl. Because Jason _wasn’t_ an asshole and didn’t want to ask her for details she wouldn’t be comfortable telling him, or to dwell on it overmuch, he said, “Can we make it a happy medium?”

“I think I can manage that,” she said, and she told him the whole sorry tale.

Jason bit his tongue the whole way through, and when she was done, he said, “Jesus _Christ_ , what an asshole. How can you even stand to look at him?” He could taste blood, almost like Lazarus rage. The tongue-biting hadn’t been entirely metaphorical. Where the fuck did Bruce even get off- 

“Red Robin,” Batgirl said. “Black Bat. He’s their _dad_ , or as good as anyway, and shitty as he’s been to me, he’s been good to them - _fantastic_ for Black Bat, really. I can deal with an asshole if it makes things easier for them. And besides, I gotta admit, Batman’s good at what he does. I respect him. Kind of.” She sighed. “Even if I don’t think I’ll ever really forgive him. If only he wasn’t an ass, you know?”

“If only,” Jason echoed.

“Anyway,” she said, and her smile went back to its usual brightness. “It’s been a good heart-to-heart, Hood, but I gotta go put some spokes in Batman’s wheels. So many crimes out there, and only one Batgirl.” She tipped him a jaunty little wave before she jumped to the next rooftop - not as gracefully as Dick, nor as quietly as Black Bat, and she landed harder than the Replacement. It wasn’t her vigilante skills that Jason envied.

“I’ll see you later,” she called back, and Jason found himself nodding. And not entirely opposed to the idea. Not even dreading it a little.

 

—

 

“You’re welcome,” Jason said, as Batman stared him down over the corpse of Two-Face’s ex-henchman. “God, why do I even bother with you people. If you don’t like the way I haul your fat out of the fire, don’t ask for rescues.”

“I didn’t ask for a rescue,” Batman said. “You shouldn’t have killed him.”

“Oh? Maybe I should just let the Replacement get shot, then. You’d love that, I’m sure. I can just hear it. ‘I trusted you and gave you a chance, but you proved you’re just the same as you were last month.’ Bam, another dead Robin, another memorial in the Cave.” Jason glared. “Like I said. Why do I even bother.”

Batman ignored him. “A false dichotomy,” he said. “The choice was not a binary between killing him and allowing Red Robin to die in his place. Other options may have existed.”

Unbelievable. He snorted. “You’re willing to put Red Robin’s life on _may have_?” As it was, the Replacement had got a nasty cut. Dickhead was accompanying him back to Alfred, to make sure he didn’t pass out on the way. Or get so hyperfocused on something else that he effectively got distracted, which Jason understood was another thing the Replacement did.

Batman ignored him. Again. This time he actually turned his back on Jason.

“Oh no you don’t. You don’t get to walk away from me. Not about this.” Another dead Robin. “What was I supposed to do, oh wise and all-knowing Bat? Huh? What was I supposed to do? Got any solutions?”

More ignore. Ignore ignore ignore. Now Jason was getting _mad_. That was all Bruce did, ignore. It was right there. It was so clear. It wasn’t that he couldn’t see, it was that he didn’t _want_ to see. The costs of his stupid rule - right in front of him. If he would have just sacked up and killed the Joker - “What was I supposed to do?”

“You were supposed to find another way!” The loss of composure was marked by Batman whirling back around in a swirl of over-dramatic cape. “Like we train for. Like I trained you - like we train for.” A beat, and then it was as if the outburst had never happened. “I will deal with the police.”

Fuck that answer, and fuck the police too. “Another way,” he said. “It’s always another way with you. Everything can go just like you want it to, if only we did things better. Nothing’s ever _really_ out of control. It’s always our fault for not being good enough. Train harder. Think faster. Don’t be so reckless.” He’d heard that one enough back when he was Robin. That and _Dick would have done it better_.

“You are reckless,” Bruce said.

“Sure, why not turn a discussion of your control freak tendencies into a discussion of my failings?” Jason shot back. “I think mine have been done to death. Literally. Haven’t you been telling Replacement _and_ the Demon Brat all about how my recklessness got me killed? As opposed to, you know, _the Joker_? No, we can move on from that.”

“Can you?”

“Says the pot to the kettle!”

Silence. Flat, dead silence. Jason was suddenly and uncomfortably aware again that they were standing over a corpse. At last, Bruce said, “Your argument isn’t about what happened just then, is it?” 

This time Jason was the one to turn away. “Fuck you,” he said. “He murdered me, and you did nothing.” Unlike some people, he wasn’t going to let the Replacement get murdered, not if he could do anything about it. Even if the Replacement _was_ a sanctimonious prick in the model of his teacher. “Except blame me for it.”

“Hood,” Bruce said, “That’s another false dichotomy.”

“Go to hell,” Jason said, and left Bruce to deal with the police he loved so much.

 

—

 

Another false dichotomy. Jason knew what he meant.

Just because Bruce hadn’t killed the Joker, that didn’t mean that he’d done nothing about Jason’s death.

It hadn’t been enough, Jason thought furiously, lying in bed too keyed up to sleep. Whatever he’d done, or thought he’d done, or thought about doing, it hadn’t been enough. Not when that monster was still on the street. _Definitely_ not when Bruce’d rather slice Jason up with a batarang than kill the bastard. Even though the effects of the Lazarus Pit had worn off, just thinking of it made his mind fuzz with rage. Not only had Bruce _not_ killed the bastard, he’d found himself another Robin. Just like that.

When he’d given up on revenge and agreed to maybe help out the family from time to time, he’d thought that it would help make him _less_ angry. Instead it seemed like all he could do was lash out. Worse, lash out uselessly. He wasn’t getting anywhere.

Hell, he wasn’t even sure what he wanted from them. The more time he spent with them, the harder it was. It was infuriating, and not just in the lesser sense of the word. Jason knew fury.

His cell phone rang, snapping him out of his latest funk. He didn’t even check to see who it was calling him, just snapped, “What?”

“The police are on to you,” a cool female voice said. “You’re going to have to change safehouses.”

Jason bolted upright. “Say what?”

“The police,” Barbara repeated. “They’ve picked up your trail. You’re going to have to pack up and move.”

He cursed, as blue a streak as he’d ever cursed before. “Did Bruce turn me in?” he asked, once he was done. He could imagine Barbara sitting patiently on the other end of the call, one eyebrow raised.

“No,” she replied, voice dropping from cool to frosty in a single syllable. “The police have been investigating the murders you’ve been committing for a while now. They took people off the mob squad for it. They picked up your trail last night, and now they’ve got a path that _will_ lead them right to your door. They didn’t need Bruce’s help for that. Believe it or not, Gotham police aren’t totally incompetent.”

“Yes, yes, I’ve heard that song and dance before. If they were so great then none of us would need vigilantes.” Holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder, Jason sat up, all thoughts of sleep forgotten. “The one time they choose to be competent…”

“Stop,” Barbara said. “Stop right there. Yes, the GCPD is corrupt, and no, they don’t do enough, but there are still good officers there who do their best and do their jobs well.” There was a pause and a few typing noises. “Looking at this duty list, some of them are chasing _you_ rather than the sort of people you kill. Well done cleaning up Gotham and getting the police back on track. Good job. You should feel proud.”

“If you don’t like it, just let them catch me,” Jason snapped. God, so much work. Moving safehouses was a pain and a half. Between that and lack of sleep he was feeling distinctly cranky. “Nobody’s making you warn me.” Unless they were. Hard to imagine anyone _making_ Barbara Gordon do something like this, though.

“What, and suffer through another bout of Bruce torturing himself over what he should do for you?”

_That’s a false dichotomy_ , Jason remembered, and squashed the thought like a bug. “As if he’d do that.”

Frosty became glacial. “My mistake. I must have imagined that time Superman pulled him off the Joker, not to mention the angst over that little stunt you pulled earlier.”

“Bullshit,” Jason snarled. “You know what he did? He _cut my throat_ , saved the Joker, then ran off to check on Dick. If there was any angst there, it wasn’t over me, it was over his precious principles and his precious favourite.”

“You say that as if you tripped and fell into the situation,” Barbara replied. “You didn’t. You could have stopped that little show at any time. But no, you weren’t happy just with knowing Bruce loved - _loves_ you, you had to know he loves you more than anything else. More than Dick - and it’s pathetic how you begrudge Dick that love, by the way - and more than what he considers to be right and wrong. You were trying to hurt him.”

That hurt. How dare she. “I was trying to _show_ him -“

“You were trying to hurt him,” Barbara interrupted, quiet but supremely confident. “Tell me. If your plan was really about stopping the Joker, why didn’t you just put two bullets in his skull and be done with it?”

Her words drove the air from his lungs and stole the reply from his mouth. That hadn’t - it hadn’t been like that. Multiple birds with one stone, right. Get his revenge on the Joker, get that slime off the streets _permanently_ , show Bruce that sometimes there was no other choice but lethal force. All in one sweet plan. It was _efficient_.

“That’s what I thought,” Barbara said. “I’m one hundred percent fine with sparing Bruce the choice between passively not turning you in and actively protecting you from the police.”

“Why do you even care?” Jason asked, all thoughts of packing and moving forgotten. “I know you know all the shit he’s pulled over the years. Fuck him! Let him, _make_ him, pick. At least then we’d all know where he stood.”

Glacial hit absolute zero. “Yes, Jason, I know what Bruce has done. More than you do, in fact. He’s said some terrible things about you that he shouldn’t have and that I won’t defend, he used you to hurt Dick, and what he did to Stephanie…she’s a better person than I am. For all that, I admire him, I respect him, and I think he makes Gotham a better place. Which is more than I can say for you.”

For a second, he hated Barbara more than he had hated anyone before, except one. It was like being back in the depths of Lazarus madness again. His fists clenched without any conscious input from him, and if he’d been holding his phone in his hands, he probably would have broken it. “Some people need to die,” Jason grated out. “It’s best for everyone.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re the best person to do it,” Barbara said. “In either a practical or moral sense.”

“You’re just like the rest of them. Killing is bad, Jason. You never need to do it. Just get over everything he did -“

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” she said, and _there_ was that temper. At least he’d made her lose her cool. “Don’t you dare. You aren’t the only one of us who’s wanted to kill someone. You aren’t the only person who’s ever been hurt. You’re not even the only one of us the _Joker_ has hurt.”

Jason revelled in her loss of composure for a few seconds. Then he realised that he’d done the exact same thing again. She’d made him feel like crap, so he’d tried to make her feel like crap in return.

Barbara said, “Anyway, move or don’t. I’ve done what I can.” Then she hung up.

Every time. He was starting to wonder if he hated them, or if he hated himself and was taking it out on them. But they _had_ treated him badly. He knew that. He just couldn’t make them see that he was right and they were wrong.

Well. There was only one person he could talk to who might have a solution there.

After he cleared out of this not-so-safe safe house.

 

—

 

“My dear boy,” Alfred said, bustling around to fix Jason a cup of tea and a plate of his famous cookies, “It is very good to see you here, albeit somewhat unexpected. Is there anything in particular you’ve come here for?”

That was Alfred, when it came to family, anyway. Ask people in and feed them first, ask questions later.

Jason stirred a spoonful of sugar into his steaming, expertly prepared tea. Back when he’d lived here, in Wayne Manor, Alfred had deemed Jason too young to have more than the occasional cup. To be offered tea so casually…it felt like he’d missed out on something. Some marker of adulthood. The Alfred version of learning to drive. Not that he’d been anywhere _near_ adulthood when he’d learned to drive; Bruce had made sure of that.

Since he’d been back, he hadn’t set foot into Wayne Manor. Not the part where people lived. Or sort of lived. The upstairs was home of the charade named Brucie. Now he was sitting at the kitchen table.

“Nothing special,” Jason said. Maybe another teaspoon of sugar? He didn’t like Earl Grey that much. He decided against it on the grounds that if he put too much sugar in his tea, Alfred might get upset about serving him something he didn’t like, and he'd drink bergamot essential oil neat rather than upset Alfred unduly. “Just…advice, I guess.”

“I am of course available at any time,” Alfred said, and sat down across the table from him. “Speak at your leisure.”

Goddammit. Now he had to talk. Now that he was here, and Alfred was actually listening to him, the prospect was that much more daunting. Where did he even start?

He fiddled with his spoon for a few seconds, then bit the metaphorical bullet and said, “I punched Dick.” That was probably the place to start, and if Alfred freaked because Jason hit the golden boy, he could bug out.

“I’m aware,” Alfred said. “Did you, perhaps, wish to tell someone your side of the story?”

“My side?” Jason narrowed his eyes in reflexive suspicion. “What’s he been telling you?”

“Nothing very coherent,” Alfred said. “He was distraught.”

“From a punch?” Jason snorted. “He needs to toughen up, then.”

“From the idea that he’d hurt you so badly you resorted to violence to make your feelings known,” Alfred corrected him. “Most of what he said was in the vein of ‘it’s all my fault,’ a sentiment I’ve heard so often from him, with or without merit, that I quite despair of him, and it casts doubt on his version of events.”

“It _was_ his fault,” Jason snapped. Then he remembered who he was talking to and what he was trying to do, and took a deep breath to calm down. “We were talking about when he put me in Arkham.”

Alfred said, “Ah.” Then, “What prompted the escalation?”

He scowled, and said, “He apologised.” God, he felt like such shit to say it like that. Dick apologised, so Jason hit him. He didn’t like feeling as though there might be something to Bruce’s shitty ‘Jason was an angry violent Robin’ statements.

“Ah,” Alfred said again. “Did you believe he meant it?”

Thinking back… “Yeah,” Jason said, which only made him feel _worse_.

But Alfred simply reached out and briefly patted Jason’s hand. “There’s no shame in being unable to accept an apology,” he said. “Indeed, it is a poor apology that doesn’t take into account that forgiveness may be delayed or withheld altogether. Forgiveness is not automatic. Though as a rule I would advise against hitting people who do offer them, at least, if you wish to mend the relationship.”

“I kept doing it though,” Jason confessed. “Not punching people, but…”

“Speaking sharply?”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

He expected Alfred to _speak sharply_ to him in return. Instead, Alfred fetched him another cookie. His third, a rare treat. Alfred usually cut the cookies off at two per guest per day. “If you are truly having difficulty dealing with your emotions when you speak to others, Master Jason, with the greatest of respect, I would suggest that you seek help more expert and impartial than mine. There is no shame in that, either. I know your life has been - difficult. Especially in the past few years.”

If he tried to eat the cookie, he was going to choke on it. There was going to be no forcing it past the lump in his throat, not even for Alfred. “What if I’ve fucked this all up?” he asked. “I don’t - I don’t - I still - “

“Care?” Alfred finished gently.

Jason nodded.

“Jason, my boy. Goodness knows this is not the easiest family in the world. Between the trauma, the poor management of that trauma, the rampant perfectionism, the abrasive personalities, the brutally high standards…it’s a wonder this family endures. But it does. Everyone in this family wants to be family. Which includes you. You have not, ah, fucked anything up, not beyond repair and no worse than any other member of this family has done at other points. If and when you are able to accept apologies, past mistakes, and present flaws, if you are still willing to mend fences, we will still be willing to mend fences.” He smiled, a bit wanly. “Take care not to rush the matter. To extend the metaphor a bit further, those rebuilt fences ought to be sound.”

He stared at his hands. He couldn’t meet Alfred’s eyes. “Are you sure?”

“If I were to tell you that you were the fifth person I’ve had this conversation with in the past fortnight, Master Jason, would you believe me?”

“No.”

“Master Richard, Master Timothy, Master Bruce - even Miss Barbara, who was most regretful about losing her temper on the phone with you the other day, and unsure how or whether to approach you to make amends.” Jason hadn’t told him about his conversation with Barbara. Verification. In part. “All worried sick about whether they’d driven you away for good.”

He could hardly believe it, but Alfred wouldn’t lie to him. Not about this. “Okay, I think that’s enough emotional talk for one day,” he said, and managed to look up.

“As an Englishman, I am obliged to agree,” Alfred said. “Was there anything else you wished to discuss?”

Jason thought about it for a second or two. “New company doing a bunch of Ibsen plays in town this month. Saw their take on _Peer Gynt_ , it was pretty good. You planning to go?”

 

—

 

In the end, he didn’t think he could face the family. Per Alfred’s advice, he decided to head off until he could speak honestly without flying off the handle. He left before Bruce got home, or even Damian.

But he didn’t leave angry.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, and any feedback you might leave! It's all appreciated.


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